* x86-64-tdep.h: Tewak comment.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.0:
5
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6* Removed --with-mmalloc
7
8Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
9conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
10
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11* Changes in AMD64 configurations
12
13The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
14the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
15and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
16you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
17
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18* Revised SPARC target
19
20The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
21FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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22support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
23from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
24(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 25
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26* New C++ demangler
27
28GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
29names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
30with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
31programs.
32
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33* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
34
35GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
36arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
37encountered these.
38
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39* New native configurations
40
41NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2031c21a 42OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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43OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
44OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 45
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46* New debugging protocols
47
48M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
49
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50* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
51
52The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
53and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
54tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
55
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56* OBSOLETE configurations and files
57
58Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
59been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
60configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
61permanently REMOVED.
62
63Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
64Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
65Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
66Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
67Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
68AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
69Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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70decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
71riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
72sonymips mips-sony-*
73sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 74
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75* REMOVED configurations and files
76
77SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
78SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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79Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
80Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
81H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
82HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
83HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
84HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
85PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 86386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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87Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
88 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
89 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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90SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
91SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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92Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
93Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 94
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95*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
96
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97* Objective-C
98
99Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
100integrated into GDB.
101
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102* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
103
104DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
105information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
106By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
107backtraces.
108
109The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
110have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
111DWARF 2 CFI support.
112
113* Hosted file I/O.
114
115GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
116file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
117remote protocol documentation for details.
118
119* All targets using the new architecture framework.
120
121All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
122architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
123to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
124ppc32 on ppc64).
125
126* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
127
128GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
129per-thread variables.
130
131* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
132
133GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
134GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
135
136* Separate debug info.
137
138GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
139automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
140of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
141system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
142and optional debug files.
143
144* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
145
146DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
147describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
148debugger.
149
150GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
151for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
152
153* Java
154
155A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
156Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
157considered "useable".
158
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159* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
160
161The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
162commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
163kernel.
164
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165* GDB supports logging output to a file
166
167There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
168used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 169
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170* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
171
172The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
173disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
174command.
175
e286caf2 176* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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177
178The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
179registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
180
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181* Profiling support
182
183A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
184be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
185session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
186"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
187data, for more informative profiling results.
188
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189* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
190
191The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
192option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 193"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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194
195Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
196removed.
197
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198Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
199Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
200Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
201 in a subsequent -var-update.
202
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203* New native configurations.
204
205FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
206
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207* Multi-arched targets.
208
b4263afa 209HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 210Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 211
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212* OBSOLETE configurations and files
213
214Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
215been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
216configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
217permanently REMOVED.
218
8b0e5691 219Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 220Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 221H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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222HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
223HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
224HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 225PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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226Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
227 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
228 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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229Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
230Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 231
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232* REMOVED configurations and files
233
234V850EA ISA
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235Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
236IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
237i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
238i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
239i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
240HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
241 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
242 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
243Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
244Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
245Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
246OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
247I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 248
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249* MIPS $fp behavior changed
250
251The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
252the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
253context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
254address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
255The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
256
299ffc64 257*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 258
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259* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
260
261When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
262`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
263in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
264library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
265shared libs like mad''.
266
b9d14705 267* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 268
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269Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
270the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
271arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
272powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 273
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274* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
275
276GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
277and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
278they expand.
279
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280The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
281invocations in expression, and shows the result.
282
283The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
284macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
285
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286Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
287information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
288your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
289information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
290
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291* Multi-arched targets.
292
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293DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
294DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 295NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 296National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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297Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
298Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 299
cd9bfe15 300* New targets.
e33ce519 301
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302Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
303
e33ce519 304
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305* New native configurations
306
307Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 308SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 309MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 310UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 311
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312* OBSOLETE configurations and files
313
314Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
315been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
316configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
317permanently REMOVED.
318
92eb23c5 319Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 320OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 321IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 322Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 323Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 324Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
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325i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
326i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
327i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
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328HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
329 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
330 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 331I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 332
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333* OBSOLETE languages
334
335CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
336
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337* REMOVED configurations and files
338
339AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
340A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
341AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
342AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
343AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
344
345testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
346
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347* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
348
349This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
350commands. The default is 1024.
351
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352* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
353
354Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
355
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356* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
357
358These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
359to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
360from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 361
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362* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
363
364The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
365including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
366of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
367
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368*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
369
370* New targets.
371
372Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
373
374* Bug fixes
375
376gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
377mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
378Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
379
380gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
381dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
382Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
383
384Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
385Surprisingly enough, it works now.
386By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
387
388i386 hardware watchpoint support:
389avoid misses on second run for some targets.
390By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
391
37057839 392*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 393
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394* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
395
396This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
397really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
398In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
399target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
400This can be a significant performance improvement on some
401(notably embedded) targets.
402
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403* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
404
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405This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
406process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
407GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
408hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 409
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410* New command line option
411
412GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
413
414* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
415
416There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
417command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
418a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
419be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
420open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
421issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
422a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
423it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
424GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
425is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
426
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427* Changes in ARM configurations.
428
429Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
430configuration is fully multi-arch.
431
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432* New native configurations
433
fe419ffc 434ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 435x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 436AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 437Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 438
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439* New targets
440
441Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
442
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443* OBSOLETE configurations and files
444
445Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
446been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
447configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
448permanently REMOVED.
449
450AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
451A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
452AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
453AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
454AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
455
b4ceaee6 456testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 457
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458* REMOVED configurations and files
459
460TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 461WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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462PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
463PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
464PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 465Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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466Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
467 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 468SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 469Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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470Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
471ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 472Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 473
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474* Changes to command line processing
475
476The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
477for the inferior from gdb's command line.
478
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479* Changes to key bindings
480
481There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
482
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483*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
484
485Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
486
487Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
488corrupted.
489
490Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
491
492Numerous documentation fixes.
493
494Numerous testsuite fixes.
495
34f47bc4 496*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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497
498* New native configurations
499
500Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
501x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 502MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
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503MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
504ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 505s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 506
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507* New targets
508
def90278 509Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 510CRIS cris-axis
55241689 511UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 512
17e78a56 513* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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514
515x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 516Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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517Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
518 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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519TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
520WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 521Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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522PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
523PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
524PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 525SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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526Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
527ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 528Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 529
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530stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
531kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
532
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533Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
534been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
535configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
536permanently REMOVED.
537
a196c81c 538* REMOVED configurations and files
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539
540Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
541Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
542Pyramid pyramid-*-*
543ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
544Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 545ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 546
6d6b80e5 547* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 548
6d6b80e5 549GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
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550sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
551present.
552
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553* Other news:
554
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555* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
556
557* The MI enabled by default.
558
559The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
560revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
561engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
562using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
563which is now deprecated.
564
565* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
566
567GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
568main features are supported:
569
570 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
571
572 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
573 extension;
574
575 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
576
577 - a Pascal expression parser.
578
579However, some important features are not yet supported.
580
581 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
582
583 - there are some problems with boolean types;
584
585 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
586 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
587
588 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
589
590 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
591
592* Changes in completion.
593
594Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
595to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
596users expect at the shell prompt.
597
598Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
599`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
600program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
601files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
602be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
603considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
604name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
605
606`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
607
608* New platform-independent commands:
609
610It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
611hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
612documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
613
614* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
615
d7275149
MK
616Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
617revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
618many threads as your system allows you to have.
619
e23194cb
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620Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
621
d7275149
MK
622Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
623multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
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624
625* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
626
627Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
628
e23194cb
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629GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
630debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
631supported.)
632
633* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
634
635Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
636breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
637implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
638put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
639and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
640registers.
641
642The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
643debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
644watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
645
646* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
647
648New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
649the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
650
651New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
652display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
653IDT.
654
655New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
656from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
657New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
658a given linear address.
659
660GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
661program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
662which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
663
664DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
665
6c56c069
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666It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
667
e23194cb
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668* Changes in documentation.
669
670All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
671Documentation License.
672
673Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
674manual.
675
676TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
677
678Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
679manual.
680
681The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
682documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
683hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
684
5d6640b1
AC
685* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
686
687The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
688``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
689contents of this file.
690
1a1d8446
AC
691* gdba.el deleted
692
693GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 694
9debab2f 695*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 696
c63ce875
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697* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
698
699Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
700programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
701displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
702greater level of detail.
703
704* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
705
706It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
707bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
708on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
709written.
710
711* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
712
713The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
714necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
715machines ``out of the box''.
716
717The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
718possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
719signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
720would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
721interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
722
723It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
724standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
725even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
726and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
727terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
728
729The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
730enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
731also works.
732
733DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
734GDB.
735
736It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
737directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
738times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
739breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
740
ed9a39eb
JM
741* New native configurations
742
743ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 744PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 745
7a292a7a
SS
746* New targets
747
96baa820 748Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
749x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
750PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
751TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
752
085dd6e6
JM
753* OBSOLETE configurations
754
755Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
756Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 757Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 758ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 759Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 760
9debab2f
AC
761Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
762but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
763these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
764be permanently REMOVED.
765
5330533d
SS
766* Gould support removed
767
768Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
769
bc9e5bbf
AC
770* New features for SVR4
771
772On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
773without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
774load symbols from the running process's executable file.
775
776* Many C++ enhancements
777
778C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
779in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
780
adf40b2e
JM
781* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
782
783A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
784sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
785with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
786``|<program> <args>'' vis:
787
788 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
789 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
790
43e526b9
JM
791* MIPS 64 remote protocol
792
793A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
794expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
795instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
796
797The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
798added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
799
96baa820
JM
800* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
801
802The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
803``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
804include ``set remote P-packet''.
805
11cf8741
JM
806* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
807
808The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
809accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
810``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
811
7876dd43
DB
812* ``apropos'' command added.
813
814The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
815documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
816try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
817
bc9e5bbf
AC
818* New MI interface
819
820A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
821interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
822process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
823"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
824enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
825
826 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
827
c906108c
SS
828*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
829
830* New native configurations
831
832HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
833HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 834M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
835
836* New targets
837
838Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
839Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
840Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
841
842* OBSOLETE configurations
843
844Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
845
846Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
847but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
848these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
849be permanently REMOVED.
850
851* ANSI/ISO C
852
853As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
854buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
855containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
856use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
857available. If this is not true, please report the affected
858configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
859information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
860already.
861
862* Readline 2.2
863
864GDB now uses readline 2.2.
865
866* set extension-language
867
868You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
869languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
870you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
871 set extension-language .c c++
872The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
873and their associated languages.
874
875* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
876
877When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
878you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
879PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
880
881 set processor NAME
882
883sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
884following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
885
886 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
887 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
888 403 IBM PowerPC 403
889 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
890 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
891 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
892 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
893 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
894 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
895 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
896 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
897
898At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
899special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
900registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
901only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
902
903* HP-UX support
904
905Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
906more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
907library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
908support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
909for xdb and dbx commands.
910
911* Catchpoints
912
913HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
914generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
915to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
916
917This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
918argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
919output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
920
921* Debugging across forks
922
923On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
924in the inferior.
925
926* TUI
927
928HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
929it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
930configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
931
932* GDB remote protocol additions
933
934A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
935Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
936fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
937allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
938
939For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
940full 64-bit address. The command
941
942 set remoteaddresssize 32
943
944can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
945the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
946will be discarded.
947
948In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
949command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
950
951 maint packet heythere
952
953sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
954disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
955time.
956
957The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
958target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
959downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
960
961* Tracing can collect general expressions
962
963You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
964further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
965doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
966
967* mask-address variable for Mips
968
969For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
970a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
971of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
972
973* Higher serial baud rates
974
975GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
976230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
977to achieve all of these rates.)
978
979* i960 simulator
980
981The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
982builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
983
984
985*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
986
987* New native configurations
988
989Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
990Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
991Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
992PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
993PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
994Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
995Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
996
997* New targets
998
999Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1000Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1001Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1002Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1003MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1004MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1005MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1006Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1007Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1008Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1009NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1010
1011* New debugging protocols
1012
1013ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1014M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1015DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1016PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1017PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1018Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1019
1020* DWARF 2
1021
1022All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1023format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1024information.
1025
1026* Java frontend
1027
1028GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1029only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1030
1031* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1032
1033For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1034loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1035locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1036
1037* Live range splitting
1038
1039GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1040range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1041more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1042
1043* Hurd support
1044
1045GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1046updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1047
1048* ARM Thumb support
1049
1050GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1051instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1052instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1053accordingly.
1054
1055* MIPS16 support
1056
1057GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1058instruction set.
1059
1060* Overlay support
1061
1062GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1063linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1064will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1065control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1066additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1067in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1068
1069* info symbol
1070
1071The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1072the symbol at the specified address.
1073
1074* Trace support
1075
1076The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1077asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1078extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1079includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1080file tracepoint.c for more details.
1081
1082* MIPS simulator
1083
1084Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1085by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1086of most MIPS variants.
1087
1088* Sparc simulator
1089
1090Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1091by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1092Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1093
1094* set architecture
1095
1096For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1097basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1098architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1099the possible architectures.
1100
1101*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1102
1103* New native configurations
1104
1105Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1106M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1107PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1108PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1109PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1110RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1111
1112* New targets
1113
1114ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1115I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1116MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1117MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1118PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1119Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1120Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1121
1122* PowerPC simulator
1123
1124The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1125contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1126PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1127basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1128performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1129
1130* Solaris 2.5
1131
1132GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1133
1134* Windows 95/NT native
1135
1136GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1137To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1138which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1139Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1140ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1141
1142* dont-repeat command
1143
1144If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1145command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1146useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1147extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1148
1149* Send break instead of ^C
1150
1151The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1152rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1153GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1154
1155* Remote protocol timeout
1156
1157The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1158that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1159to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1160
1161* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1162
1163By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1164loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1165stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1166when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1167in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1168
1169Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1170/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1171automatically on hpux10.
1172
1173* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1174
1175Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1176
1177* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1178
1179When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1180may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1181the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1182every character. The default value is 1050.
1183
1184* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1185
1186If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1187a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1188replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1189details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1190remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1191to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1192
1193* Speedups for remote debugging
1194
1195GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1196the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1197and more efficient S-record downloading.
1198
1199* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1200
1201GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1202Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1203
1204*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1205
1206* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1207
1208The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1209can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1210
1211* Remote targets use caching
1212
1213Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1214remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1215it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1216debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1217off' turns the the data cache off.
1218
1219* Remote targets may have threads
1220
1221The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1222in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1223gdb/remote.c for details.
1224
1225* NetROM support
1226
1227If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1228support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1229acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1230write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1231support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1232another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1233sequence is something like
1234
1235 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1236 load <prog>
1237 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1238
1239* Macintosh host
1240
1241GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1242may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1243it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1244available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1245device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1246directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1247scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1248mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1249
1250* Autoconf
1251
1252GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1253but does simplify configuration and building.
1254
1255* hpux10
1256
1257GDB now supports hpux10.
1258
1259*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1260
1261* New native configurations
1262
1263x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1264x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1265NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1266Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1267
1268* New targets
1269
1270A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1271HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1272CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1273PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1274WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1275
1276* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1277
1278GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1279possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1280filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1281the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1282if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1283
1284* Arguments to user-defined commands
1285
1286User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1287Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1288trivial example:
1289define adder
1290 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1291
1292To execute the command use:
1293adder 1 2 3
1294
1295Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1296Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1297use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1298
1299* New `if' and `while' commands
1300
1301This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1302commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1303expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1304execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1305terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1306`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1307if the expression is zero.
1308
1309* Fortran source language mode
1310
1311GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1312Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1313variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1314with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1315Fortran compilers.
1316
1317* Better HPUX support
1318
1319Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1320running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1321processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1322for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1323that behavior do the following before running the program:
1324
1325 adb -w a.out
1326 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1327 control-d
1328
1329This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1330To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1331
1332 adb -w a.out
1333 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1334 control-d
1335
1336You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1337the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1338external linkage.
1339
1340GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1341HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1342
1343* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1344
1345You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1346commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1347current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1348"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1349associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1350configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1351
1352* New DOS host serial code
1353
1354This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1355no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1356a PC's serial port.
1357
1358*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1359
1360* New "complete" command
1361
1362This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1363were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1364
1365* Trailing space optional in prompt
1366
1367"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1368allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1369
1370* Breakpoint hit counts
1371
1372"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1373has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1374can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1375to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1376less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1377that breakpoint.
1378
1379* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1380
1381"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1382an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1383arrays actually contain only short strings.
1384
1385* Shared library breakpoints
1386
1387In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1388breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1389
1390* Hardware watchpoints
1391
1392There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1393targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1394
55241689 1395Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1396
1397* Annotations
1398
1399Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1400and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1401
1402* Improved Irix 5 support
1403
1404GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1405
1406* Improved HPPA support
1407
1408GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1409
1410* New native configurations
1411
1412Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1413HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1414Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1415RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1416
1417* New targets
1418
1419OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1420MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1421Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1422
1423* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1424
1425There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1426This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1427
1428* Fixes
1429
1430As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1431and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1432
1433*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1434
1435* Irix 5 is now supported
1436
1437* HPPA support
1438
1439GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1440to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1441GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1442of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1443can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1444
1445
1446*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1447
1448* User visible changes:
1449
1450* Remote Debugging
1451
1452The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1453target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1454debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1455integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1456debugging info for the mips target).
1457
1458* DEC Alpha native support
1459
1460GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1461debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1462work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1463Alpha-specific notes.
1464
1465* Preliminary thread implementation
1466
1467GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1468
1469* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1470
1471This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1472to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1473for details).
1474
1475* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1476
1477This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1478mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1479call methods, ...etc.
1480
1481*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1482
1483 * User visible changes:
1484
1485Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1486supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1487other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1488somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1489
1490Filename completion now works.
1491
1492When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1493arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1494addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1495
1496All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1497vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1498should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1499your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1500to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1501
1502 * DEC alpha support
1503
1504This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1505cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1506
1507
1508*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1509
1510 * Testsuite
1511
1512This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1513The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1514via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1515
1516 * C++ demangling
1517
1518'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1519emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1520Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1521disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1522use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1523
1524 * Simulators
1525
1526GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1527So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1528Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1529
1530 * New targets supported
1531
1532H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1533H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1534SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1535Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1536IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1537
1538Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1539version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1540GO32 memory extender.
1541
1542 * New remote protocols
1543
1544MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1545
1546 * New source languages supported
1547
1548This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1549used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1550into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1551
1552
1553*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1554
1555 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1556
1557GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1558version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1559University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1560compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1561format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1562(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1563
1564Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1565
1566 * Faster and better demangling
1567
1568We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1569demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1570character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1571only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1572This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1573increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1574symbol lookups.
1575
1576`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1577from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1578compiler does not actually implement.
1579
1580 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1581
1582In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1583inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1584recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1585very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1586The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1587circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1588fix.
1589
1590The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1591release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1592
1593 * Improved configure script
1594
1595The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1596you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1597host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1598done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1599
1600We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1601version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1602`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1603The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1604only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1605We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1606
1607 * Documentation improvements
1608
1609There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1610produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1611before submitting changes.
1612
1613The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1614M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1615`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1616you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1617a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1618
1619*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1620We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1621been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1622or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1623`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1624around this problem.
1625
1626 * New features
1627
1628GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1629the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1630`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1631the target program.
1632
1633The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1634how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1635
1636 * New native hosts supported
1637
1638HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1639386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1640
1641 * New targets supported
1642
1643AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1644
1645 * New file formats supported
1646
1647BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1648HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1649
1650 * Major bug fixes
1651
1652Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1653
1654We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1655printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1656
1657We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1658for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1659release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1660
1661You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1662will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1663
1664We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1665for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1666especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1667libraries.
1668
1669The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1670information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1671command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1672any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1673when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1674
1675 * Internal improvements
1676
1677GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1678debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1679
1680GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1681Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1682symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1683contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1684shared code that handles any of them.
1685
1686 * New command line options
1687
1688We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1689
1690 * Mmalloc licensing
1691
1692The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1693General Public License.
1694
1695*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1696
1697 * Host/native/target split
1698
1699GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1700hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1701target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1702local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1703ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1704
1705The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1706GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1707is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1708code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1709any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1710built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1711handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1712
1713GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1714It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1715plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1716
1717 * New hosts supported
1718
1719HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1720386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1721386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1722
1723 * New targets supported
1724
1725Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
172668030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1727
1728 * New native hosts supported
1729
1730386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1731 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1732386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1733
1734 * New file formats supported
1735
1736BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1737supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1738format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1739
1740 * New commands
1741
1742`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1743`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1744These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1745
1746`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1747
1748You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1749scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1750prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1751executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1752
1753 * C++ improvements
1754
1755We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1756info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1757symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1758
1759Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1760
1761 * Major bug fixes
1762
1763The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1764fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1765by the compiler.
1766
1767We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1768support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1769
1770John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1771slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1772that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1773purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1774the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1775mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1776
1777Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1778about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1779completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1780we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1781
1782 * AMD 29k support
1783
1784A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1785specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1786calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1787usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1788in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1789
1790We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1791Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1792of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1793resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1794
1795 * Remote interfaces
1796
1797We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1798with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1799message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1800This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1801needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1802breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1803each instruction being stepped through.
1804
1805The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1806registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1807
1808There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1809find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1810Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1811processor with a serial port.
1812
1813 * Configuration
1814
1815Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1816`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1817supported, and what files each one uses.
1818
1819 * Library changes
1820
1821There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1822disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1823Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1824disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1825
1826The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1827Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1828can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1829grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1830
1831 * Documentation
1832
1833The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1834reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1835as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1836encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1837system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1838bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1839
1840And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1841
1842
1843*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1844
1845 * Better support for C++ function names
1846
1847GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1848names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1849(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1850single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1851Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1852
1853GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1854the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1855You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1856lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1857for the list of formats.
1858
1859 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1860
1861Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1862C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1863directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1864can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1865usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1866about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1867this problem.)
1868
1869 * New 'maintenance' command
1870
1871All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1872the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1873can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1874
1875 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1876 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1877 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1878 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1879 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1880 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1881
1882The following commands are new:
1883
1884 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1885 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1886 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1887
1888 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1889
1890We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1891(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1892be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1893read after argv processing.
1894
1895 * New hosts supported
1896
1897Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1898
55241689 1899GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1900
1901We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1902is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1903for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1904masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1905fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1906It costs extra.
1907
1908 * New targets supported
1909
1910Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1911
1912 * More smarts about finding #include files
1913
1914GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1915all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1916greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1917especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1918the one that contains your sources.
1919
1920We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1921breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1922try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1923
1924 * Interesting infernals change
1925
1926GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1927section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1928target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1929stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1930
1931 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1932
1933There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1934 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1935 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1936
1937See the ChangeLog for details.
1938
1939*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1940
1941 * New machines supported (host and target)
1942
1943IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1944
1945SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1946
1947 * New malloc package
1948
1949GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1950Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1951capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1952This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1953pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1954more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1955
1956 * info proc
1957
1958The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1959'help info proc' for details.
1960
1961 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1962
1963The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1964Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1965possible.
1966
1967 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1968
1969Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1970support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1971conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1972environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1973that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1974in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1975
1976 * Cross byte order fixes
1977
1978Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1979targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1980
1981 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1982
1983If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1984system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1985`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1986program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1987called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1988Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1989and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1990the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1991option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1992starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1993
1994You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1995the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1996information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1997slower, but makes future operations faster.
1998
1999The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2000build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2001A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2002use is:
2003
2004 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2005
2006The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2007It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2008shared across multiple host platforms.
2009
2010 * longjmp() handling
2011
2012GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2013siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2014all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2015platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2016
2017 * Solaris 2.0
2018
2019Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2020this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2021reading symbols.
2022
2023 * Bug fixes
2024
2025As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2026People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2027crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2028
2029*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2030
2031 * New machines supported (host and target)
2032
2033SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2034 (except core files)
2035BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2036Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2037
2038 * New machines supported (target)
2039
2040AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2041
2042 * C++ support
2043
2044GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2045The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2046per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2047
2048GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2049`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2050extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2051good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2052will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2053released.
2054
2055 * New features for SVR4
2056
2057GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2058shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2059only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2060
2061The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2062on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2063it prints the address mappings of the process.
2064
2065If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2066bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2067
2068 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2069
2070Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2071now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2072skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2073make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2074same code linked statically.
2075
2076 * New Getopt
2077
2078GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2079version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2080continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2081Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2082added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2083future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2084
2085 * Bugs fixed
2086
2087The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2088Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2089See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2090
2091
2092*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2093
2094 * New machines supported (host and target)
2095
2096Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2097NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2098Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2099
2100 * Almost SCO Unix support
2101
2102We had hoped to support:
2103SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2104(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2105that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2106about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2107
2108 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2109
2110GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2111debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2112is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2113send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2114reqired (if any).
2115
2116 * New Readline
2117
2118GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2119is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2120required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2121
2122 * Bugs fixed
2123
2124The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2125Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2126See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2127
2128 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2129
2130GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2131supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2132symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2133
2134Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2135mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2136debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2137mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2138version 2.
2139
2140Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2141really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2142line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2143variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2144situation somewhat.
2145
2146When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2147However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2148methods.
2149
2150We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2151DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2152encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2153
2154
2155*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2156
2157 * Improved configuration
2158
2159Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2160Porting BFD is simpler.
2161
2162 * Stepping improved
2163
2164The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2165of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2166in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2167function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2168
2169 * Bug fixing
2170
2171Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2172
2173 * New host supported (not target)
2174
2175Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2176
2177
2178*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2179
2180 * Multiple source language support
2181
2182GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2183It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2184and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2185language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2186You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2187`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2188
2189 * GDB and Modula-2
2190
2191GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2192currently under development at the State University of New York at
2193Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2194continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2195
2196Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2197debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2198symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2199
2200There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2201in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2202
2203 * set write on/off
2204
2205GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2206a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2207the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2208by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2209effect immediately.
2210
2211 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2212
2213When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2214shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2215The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2216examining core files.
2217
2218 * set listsize
2219
2220You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2221The default is 10.
2222
2223 * New machines supported (host and target)
2224
2225SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2226Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2227Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2228
2229 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2230
2231IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2232
2233 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2234
2235AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2236AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2237Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2238
2239 * New remote interfaces
2240
2241AMD 29000 Adapt
2242AMD 29000 Minimon
2243
2244
2245*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2246
2247 * New Facilities
2248
2249Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2250
2251Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2252target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2253is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2254remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2255remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2256also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2257using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2258stub on the target system.
2259
2260New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2261
2262GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2263library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2264object file types such as a.out and coff.
2265
2266There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2267refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2268
2269
2270 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2271
2272All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2273by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2274
2275For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2276``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2277Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2278
2279What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2280print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2281will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2282all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2283
2284confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2285 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2286 it is already running. Default is ON.
2287
2288editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2289 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2290 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2291 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2292 Default is ON.
2293
2294history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2295 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2296 or the value of the environment variable
2297 GDBHISTFILE.
2298
2299history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2300 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2301 HISTSIZE.
2302
2303history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2304 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2305 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2306
2307history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2308 history expansion will be performed on
2309 command line input. The default is OFF.
2310
2311radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2312 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2313 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2314
2315height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2316 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2317 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2318 variable TERM.
2319
2320width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2321 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2322 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2323 variable TERM.
2324
2325Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2326``set width'' instead.
2327
2328print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2329 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2330 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2331 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2332
2333print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2334 is OFF.
2335
2336print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2337 "raw" form if off.
2338
2339print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2340 like instructions.
2341
2342print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2343
2344
2345 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2346
2347The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2348new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2349are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2350window.
2351
2352
2353 * Support for Shared Libraries
2354
2355GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2356Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2357before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2358happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2359At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2360from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2361shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2362It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2363
2364sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2365 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2366 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2367
2368info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2369
2370
2371 * Watchpoints
2372
2373A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2374expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2375tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2376quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2377problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2378more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2379
2380watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2381
2382info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2383
2384delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2385disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2386enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2387
2388
2389 * C++ multiple inheritance
2390
2391When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2392for C++ programs.
2393
2394 * C++ exception handling
2395
2396Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2397ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2398the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2399handler's context).
2400
2401catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2402 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2403 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2404
2405info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2406 current stack frame.
2407
2408
2409 * Minor command changes
2410
2411The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2412command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2413is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2414
2415The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2416at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2417frames without printing.
2418
2419 * New directory command
2420
2421'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2422The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2423about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2424with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2425find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2426
2427 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2428
2429For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2430for more details.
2431
2432GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2433two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2434Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2435where the program that you are debugging will run.
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